Chocolate Snob
by EllieF
Summary: comment!fic for the prompt "Death Note, Mello, making hot chocolate."


**Notes:** comment!fic that got long-ish, for the prompt "_Death Note, Mello, making hot chocolate."_

"It can't be the powdered kind," Mello says.

Those just-add-water mixes are something close to blasphemy, though it isn't the word Mello would use. "Just fuckin' _wrong_," he might say, swearing in a way that was a conscious effort to put on toughness when he was younger, but is ingrained now that he's twelve.

In fact, it takes a concerted effort _not_ to swear in front of the strange visitor who's haunting _Mello's_ kitchen tonight, the man who calls himself Ryuuzaki, who they say is Roger's nephew. Mello doesn't believe that for a second, but he does think Ryuuzaki is the sort of person who would take him to task for his foul mouth, and for once, Mello would mind.

Ryuuzaki nods, and taps his thumb against his lower lip, seemingly perfectly content to let Mello do the cooking. "Do you often sneak down to the kitchen at night?"

Mello pauses in his search for a saucepan—he swears the cook moves them on the sly—but doesn't hear condemnation in the question, only curiosity. "I guess," he says. "I don't sleep a lot."

"Do you suffer from insomnia?"

"No. I just have too much shi— stuff to do." He finds the pan in time to set it on the stove and look back to see Ryuuzaki's reaction to his almost-slip, which is disappointingly low-key, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"Your studies must keep you thoroughly occupied."

Mello bristles at that, thinking how much _easier _everything would be if he weren't chasing goddamn Near all the time, and the water slops over the rim of the measuring cup he's filling. "Yeah, well. Sleep is for people who don't want things badly enough."

"I am inclined to agree with the sentiment, if not the value judgment," Ryuuzaki says, and Mello grins at him. He's old, he must be twenty at least, but he doesn't talk to Mello as if he were just a kid.

Mello wants to ask all sorts of questions, like _Who are you, really?_ and _Why are you here?_ Ryuuzaki arrived to a storm of rumor and speculation, but even the efforts of a house full of kid geniuses have failed to get any real information about him so far. At least he likes chocolate, and seems disinclined to raise the alarm about a kid out of bed after curfew. Finally, Mello settles on: "Did you live here, before?"

"No. I have been on my own for a long time."

"How long?" Mello asks, carefully, glad Ryuuzaki has abandoned his cover story, but afraid he could at any moment snap back into bland generalities.

"Since I was eight."

Mello collects the baking chocolate and cinnamon from the cabinet by the stove, the milk from the icebox, and adds them to the saucepan. It's easier to say things like this when he's not looking at the other person, and this is something no one but Matt knows. "I was five when my mum and dad died."

"I imagine you were angry."

"Yeah." He picked fights at the first orphanage he was sent to, and at Wammy's for a time. Anything to keep from feeling like the world was random after all, that good people died young, and bad ones lived on, and God did nothing. "You too?"

Ryuuzaki doesn't straighten from the slouch Mello suspects is involuntary, but he gives the impression his attention has sharpened. "You are a very insightful young man."

"That's a yes," Mello says, with a hint of his usual cockiness.

"It is," Ryuuzaki admits.

The chocolate's almost melted, and Mello just has to make sure it doesn't boil. "Some of the kids think you're lying about who you are," he says to the wall over the stove.

"What do you think?"

He waits until the mixture in the pan looks and smells just right, and moves it off the burner. "I think you have to be careful. You can't tell just anyone. Unless they've already guessed. Unless they want to know badly enough."

Ryuuzaki makes a subtle noise that might be a repressed laugh. "Maybe you will put whipped cream and chocolate shavings on the drink. What do you want to know, Mello?"

"Mm, maybe I will," Mello says, airily, and of course he has every intention of doing so. He turns to face Ryuuzaki. "If you're L, I wanna know your story."

"_If_ I were," Ryuuzaki says, "why should I tell you?"

Mello considers threatening to tell everyone his suspicion, but he knows blackmail won't fly. "I can keep a secret," he says. "And I know where the shaved chocolate lives, and I." He stops, but the potential gain is worth the embarrassment. "I want to know what it's like to be L, because it's what I want to be more than anything in the world."

Ryuuzaki studies him for a long moment, and he has that look of repressed amusement again. "Ambitious and brilliant, but hot-headed. That is what your file says. It is not wrong. Have a seat. I will tell you some stories."


End file.
